Streetlight Walls
by astrarisks
Summary: Two women meet in the dead of the night, each harboring unsavory oddities, unique to their own. A touch and a click was all that was needed for a doomed relationship to blossom. (Crossed paths between a sociopathic perfectionist and a lieutenant gang leader—nothing could ever go wrong, right?) :: elsa/anna, non-incest. modern!au.
1. splatters

_(uploaded — 7.1.14)_ :: _[a little something ____— _that went through three rewrites, at which one point elsa was quite literally an opera singer ___—_ i needed to throw out to the beasts before i go back to working on another project. -.- _i'll come back to this, eventually. also, i have a tendency to word-vomit, so...yeah _^^_ bear with me here.__]_

:.

_I do not own _Frozen_. You can also find this on Tumblr and AO3 (links on my profile)._

* * *

**Streetlight Walls**

.

.

_(i)_

_i am a little bit of loneliness, a little bit of disregard_  
_handful of complaints, but i can't help the fact that everyone can see these scars_  
_i am what i want you to want, what i want you to feel_  
_but it's like no matter what i do, i can't convince you to just believe this is real_

* * *

**chapter one (or, maybe more of a prologue)** :: splatters

-—

**part the first** :: oh how she_ hateshateshates-_

Meet Elsa. And learn a few things about her, while you're at it.

She's a painter, and she hates straight lines and she actually, honestly, really hates colors. She's a painter, and her paintings pertain to either barren arctic landscapes or more often, figures. She's a painter, and she has an undying need for control.

(Because through control, she has power. Everyone wants power, right?)

:.

Meet Anna. And learn a few things about her, while you're at it.

She's a criminal, and she hates knives and she actually, honestly, really hates blood. She's a criminal, and her crimes pertain to either armed robbery or more often, arranged murders. She's a criminal, and she has an undying need for money.

(Because through money, she has security. Everyone wants security, right?)

-—

**part the second** :: the painter

Her choice weapon of torture is a paintbrush and a blank canvas is her unlucky victim.

Sometimes, she will enter a manic episode that people who count themselves lucky enough (or unlucky, depending on whom you ask) to have witnessed soon learn not to disturb in any sort of way. These are the times when Elsa can be found standing before a stretch of pale canvas like a wolf before a baby rabbit, palette and paintbrush in hand, ready to despoil its innocence with washes of monochrome shades and colors. These are the times when she wouldn't be seen for two or three days straight, locked up in her vast, paint-splattered studio with nothing but the smell of oils and acrylics and tainted water for company; she will finally emerge, hollow-eyed and malnourished, a hermit carrying another one of her priceless works. These are the times when she will be slashing strokes of paint onto her board, curving the fine fibers of the brush over a swell and masterfully blending together shades of the same color in the most bizarre ways, when she wouldn't stop painting until whatever idea had planted itself into her mind was translated from subconsciousness to physicality.

Ever since she was a little girl, her father had instilled into her the belief that she needed to be _perfect._ She needed to be perfect in everything she did and anything she did do had to have some semblance of purpose.

Her paintings sell for thousands in exhibitions and are one of the most sought-after in the state, going on the country and the world. When the words _Elsa Vetr_ are spoken, one can either expect an outpour of admiration that ostensibly has no end or an ugly, vehement, too-much-information outburst containing a thousand and one reasons exactly why she's the shittiest artist in the world. Elsa's art is of the controversial kind, the one that attracts devout admirers who foam at the mouth upon seeing her work, or maybe those screaming for her head to be stabbed onto a pike and smushed into something vaguely resembling a fleshy pancake on the ground.

Elsa, personally, does not quite care for neither her enthusiasts nor her haters, and has perhaps offended one too many people with blunt and unfeeling remarks when they inquired after her health, or maybe the weather. Although, Elsa's found that she does not really care for a lot of things these days. She has her brushes, and her paints, and her canvases. That's really all she needs.

That, and the ability to produce the perfect painting.

Which she has not achieved yet.

Which is why she hates every single one of her landscapes and figures and portraits to the current date.

:.

Elsa Vetr has this strange, self-inflicted disability — another odd idiosyncrasy, in truth — in which she _cannot_ and _will not_ stop painting until it is precisely nine-twenty-one in the night.

It started ninety-one days before her thirteenth birthday and honestly, Elsa can't even remember the details of what happened, but she had a vague feeling that it was painful, and apparently she had been found wandering the streets at two in the morning on September twenty-first with dried blood caking her shorts and some more of the stuff crusting around the inside of her thighs. She was taken to the hospital and released the next day, to the custody of her rightly worried mother and supremely unconcerned father.

Elsa recalled wondering sometimes if the monster of a man she had lived with for the past twelve years was actually her father, and not some beast sent from hell to haunt her every step. She used to wonder how her kindhearted, sweet, loving mother could have married a man who berated and slapped his daughter whenever she brought home anything less than A-plus material and she used to wonder if her mother had been forced into marriage. But then she stopped wondering about all of this, because she didn't care anymore and it really didn't matter.

(The only thing that mattered was creating that elusive, perfect painting.)

But Elsa's father had imparted one crucial life lesson his daughter would take to her very heart and carry out no matter what: to achieve perfection, one needed total control, and while achieving this unblemished state, this pure perfection —

— use any fucking means possible.

:.

She had a relatively normal childhood, although this was probably due to the fact that her father was only home one day of the week every month, and when he was home he locked himself in his study and pretended as if his wife and child didn't exist.

It was mother who first introduced Elsa to paints. Idun Vetr herself was a modestly-recognized painter, and her paintings were always alive and full of _color._

Idun put the paintbrush in her daughter's hand and from day one outward it was true love. After school was let out, Elsa would immediately run to her mother's easel and, with her tongue poking out the corner of her mouth, dip her brush into paint and drag it across blank canvas.

The raw talent was obvious, even if Elsa hadn't really been drawing anything that could be totally recognized, so her mother had shipped her off to art lessons. Her teacher, an old woman of the driest of humors, told her a few years later that Elsa might want to consider pursuing art professionally.

Elsa did.

Her earlier paintings, for a while when she was still considering whether or not she should go into painting as a profession, had vibrant shades to them — deep crimsons and ultramarine blues all. They were _alive._

Two weeks after the hospital incident, Elsa came home with a special painting — the last she ever did in polychrome, although she didn't know it at the time — she had been working on for a few weeks in tow and found her father talking on the phone. There was a foreboding atmosphere hanging in the air, one that seeped into the cracks underneath the walls and permeated every hallway.

Then her father hung up, faced a motionless Elsa impassively, and said, "Your mother was in a fatal car crash."

Something else crashed right then, too, when Elsa's slack fingers let the painting in her arms drop onto the ground with a thunk. She stared at him, her gaze tormented, uncertainty and anguish fighting an endless battle with each other within. They pounded against the walls of her heart, cracks expanding by the miles, until it simply _shattered_ into pieces and sent her keeling to her knees. Her head was buried in her hands, and she was crying before her no-nonsense bastard of a father, but she couldn't quite care about this right now because Mother was gone. Mother would never braid her hair again in the mornings, they would never paint together again in the studio, Elsa would never get to _laugh_ with her again and talk about colors and — and —

Agdar looked down at his weeping daughter and her painting, and was silent, for once.

The painting, it was of Idun.

-—

**part the third** :: the red crane

There is a city, secluded off in some forgotten corner of the world, named Arendelle. It's a curious place, having been built into existence some six hundred years earlier by ice harvesters looking for a place to oversee the comings and goings of the ice trade in Scandinavia, and has been expanded later into a township, then a city since.

Arendelle is essentially run by gangs, and gangs are run by powerful crime syndicates. There are around eight million people living in Arendelle and nearly three-quarters of them are associated with a gang in some way, shape, or form. Half of those six million people happen to be children, ranging from the tender (and horrific, when you put it into context) age of nine to college-wise twenty-one. There isn't exactly any reason _why_ there are so many children in these gangs; some of them come from well-to-do families, and others from the streets or slums. But there are a few traits that they share in common: a need for money and security. Love of blood and violence and terror.

There are many gangs operating around town, but the largest and most powerful are the Red Cranes.

Anna Bergström is a member of the Red Cranes. She is twenty years old. She was initiated into their ranks when she was eleven.

(She was starving for money and food and a place to finally _belong.)_

Anna is second-in-command, and she needs to become Queen.

:.

Two women meet in the dead of the night, each harboring unsavory habits, unique to their own. There is a knife and there is a gun, and the touch and the click are all that are needed for a grudging bond to be formed.

You've just met both of them. A painter who is willing to go to the ends of the earth to create infinity, to create perfection. A lieutenant who is plotting to turn the underworld upside down on its head and grab the reins of power in the city.

And surely, nothing will go wrong from their arrangement.

* * *

_aaand the plot will start next chapter, whenever i decide to upload it. i do not plan for this story to be more than five chapters long. maybe more, maybe less. but i can promise you that it's going to be short and not at all sweet._

_all the best._


	2. dimensions

_(uploaded — 7.19.14) _:: _[thanks for the feedback. you know, __a more accurate title for this would be ________**no character shall be sane**. ______insane people sometimes do very questionable things. ______(exhibit a: elsa.) _#_#_____ there are potential triggers from here on out. but we shall forge onward.__]_ :: _{playlist: _"the farewell," "spectrum of the sky"; _break of reality.}_

:.

_I don't own _Frozen_. Now rated _**M**. _You can also find this on AO3 and Tumblr._

* * *

**Streetlight Walls**

.

.

_(ii)_

_let's play a game_  
_where all of the lives we lead can change_  
_let's play a game_  
_where nothing that we can see, the same_

* * *

**chapter two (or, maybe more of a first-meetings sort of thing)** :: dimensions

-—

**part the first** :: some times fractured

_[some time, in the near future]_

"Love," says Anna, dragging her finger across the still-wet canvas. "That's what it needs, Elsa! Love."

Then it would be a shame that Elsa doesn't know what love feels like, and she's standing still — _frozen_ — when she allows this thought to sink in. Blue eyes narrow imperceptibly at the strawberry blonde with an unnerving kind of blankness scrawled all across her gaze. There is a few seconds of horrible, stagnant silence. Then her lips, pink and thin, curve into a small smile.

"You're right," says Elsa accordingly, and her grin becomes both parts dazzling and sinister. Terrifying in its girth, her pearly whites glittering in the dim light. Then she turns on Anna, eyes sharpening to infinite points of darkened cerulean. The redhead's eyes widen slightly at Elsa's sudden intensity, and she shudders slightly when the blonde's fingers trail gently up the curve of her jawline, coming to cup the underside of Anna's chin.

"You will help me. You promised me."

It's a statement, not a question. Elsa's hand is still curled around Anna's jawline and her smile has become fixed, something plastic and synthetic. It unnerves Anna slightly, but she thinly smiles back and reaches up to pry Elsa's fingers off of her chin, if only to grasp her forearm in an iron grip and pull the taller woman up closer to her. Breaths intermingle and pulses race. Anna can see Elsa's eyes visibly darken, glinting with roiling lust and heated want. Her hand snakes downward, gripping the collar of Anna's shirt.

"You will help me...paint love, then?" she breathes again.

"'Course I will," Anna scoffs, and there is no hesitation when she speaks. "We have a deal. If _you_ uphold your end, then it follows that I'll uphold mine."

Elsa's grip tightens on the front of her shirt, wrinkling the pressed fabric into hopelessly crinkled folds. But Anna doesn't care, because any sort of level of cognitive function she has retained right there is crushed when the painter drags her ever closer, bodies pressed flush against each other.

Then Elsa leans in and kisses her, fiercely, and when Anna feels Elsa's lips moving against her own, the first thing she thinks before a hazy wave of lust washes every other thought away from her mind except to _kiss her back, goddammit,_ is that it feels empty. Hungry, but empty.

_Brutally soul-searching,_ Anna vaguely thinks, and then she forgets all her thoughts the next moment and kisses the blonde back.

Elsa mumbles something into Anna's mouth.

"What?" pants Anna.

Elsa only hums, her hands playing with the waistband of the redhead's jeans.

"I believe," she says slowly, "that I know how to create...my painting." Light pecks, starting from the corner of Anna's mouth and trailing a burning path up the curve of her jawline before settling at the shell of the redhead's ear, nipping gently at the tender flesh. Anna feels a moan sliding out past her lips, her hands twitching around Elsa's trim waist.

"O-oh?"

Anna can feel Elsa's lips curl upward into a grin against her skin.

"Ah. Yes," she says, all the while descending down the column of Anna's neck, "I need love. I need paint, I need _warm paint._" She laughs, softly, and then lightly nips at the protrusion of Anna's collarbone, eliciting a short huff of air from the younger girl. "My paintings are..._dead,_ is that not the case? The answer is so simple. To replace something dead, I need something alive."

"Y-you're getting better," Anna feebly argues, paying less attention to Elsa's words and much more concerned about her lips continuing their ministrations. _Fuck, yes — right over there —__  
_

Elsa says again, "I need something _alive."_ Lips curving upward even more, "So, I am able to create the perfect painting, you know. That's all I really live for."

Something about her voice, something about her words — it nags at Anna, but she just can't put her finger on exactly _what_ it is.

And then she doesn't really care anymore anyway, because Elsa's hands have shoved themselves up her shirt, feather-light fingertips brushing teasingly over the sides of her breasts, nudging her gently to the left until her back hits the side of the studio's wall.

They speak on the subject no more.

:.

_[some time, in the distant past]_

Anna remembers her initiation into the Red Cranes only too well, each detail having been scored into her mind without any pretense of ever healing over, ever letting her forget. When asked about it, though, she'll immediately avert her eyes and mumble something about hating knives, because she'd done something unspeakably horrible with them back then that she never wanted to think about it again.

She was holding back tears the day she asked to join, her face patched with ugly, healing yellow bruises, a single laceration trickling blood over her right eye. Back in those days, she cried much too often. Big fat salty droplets of water, rolling down her cheeks and intermingling with smears of blood, painted prominently across her freckled skin. A fresh, mottled blue-and-black bruise was blossoming like an ugly flower over half the yellowed imprints, rendering the current healing of those older marks completely redundant. She was an emaciated little thing, abused and beaten and starved of sustenance and love from the _place_ she had the misfortune to call a _home_, living with a drunken ass of a _man_ who was unfortunately her _father_.

Place, home. Man, father. She used the words interchangeably and avoided the latter ones as frequently as possible.

Anna had never known her mother. From what little scraps of information she could gather, her mother was a high school dropout and was impregnated with her daughter when she was only eighteen and fucking terrified. Anna had been one decision away from becoming an aborted fetus, but was carried to full term in the end.

She died, while birthing Anna. Complications, the doctors said. Father began drinking soon after that, drowning himself in bottle after bottle of liquor until he couldn't tell reality apart from fantasy: in short, completely unstable and incapable of supporting his young daughter. One of Anna's earlier memories was of her biological father sitting, half folded-over at the kitchen table, a bottle of liquor clutched in his hands. He turned his bloodshot eyes on her shaking, prone form, the soft words sliding from past her lips, feathery and uncertain in their execution.

"Daddy," she whispered, clutching nervously at her arms, "Daddy, what are you...?"

He was sitting that one moment, shooting to his feet the next and lunging toward her, hobbling on unsteady feet and swiping heavily with the back of his hand. Anna's head snapped backwards and she stumbled back with a strangled cry, her feet tripping over themselves before she collapsed onto the ground in a tangled heap of bruised flesh and clothes already staining with tears. Her hands were cupping her cheek, trembling in shock and disbelief as she stared up at her father, towering over her and snarling like a predator about to maul its downed prey.

"You," he roared, "are a disgrace! You're not worth the dirt you walk on, girl! Just because I sired you, doesn't mean I have to love you. I've never loved you. And I never will!" He kicked her side, the vehement attack blunted somewhat when his toe missed her and she was instead smacked by the side of his foot.

And_ bam._ That was that. The three seconds it took him to spit out his words was the only picture of the man who made up half of her genetic material she would ever remember.

Needless to say, that was also the last time Anna would ever call the alcoholic, blond-haired man _Daddy_.

The abuse only got worse and worse as time mercilessly ground on. Anna, at the tender age of seven, took to staying in the streets for extended periods of time. The city pathways, well-worn sidewalks, they became her surrogate home. She was out from nine in the morning when she stole out of primary school, to deep into the shadows of the late night, when the only lights provided were that of the flickering streetlights, golden glows illuminating graffiti-covered brick walls, and the cold light of the moon shining down from the heavens. She melted into the protection of cramped alleyways, a silent little girl hiding with the darkness, when groups of gang members ambled by with switchblades glinting and guns nestled prominently in their holsters. She felt safer shrouded in shadows than she did in broad daylight: there was no one around to beat her, humiliate her, treat her as less than dog crap rotting in the city dump.

She hungered for attention. Starved and depraved of love at home, she frantically sought it out elsewhere. And she found it in the city streets, the sounds of engines humming ever-present in the air, the rough feeling of scarred bricks underneath her fingertips.

This was where one Flynn Rider found her and learned her life story. This was where two days later, she was picked up from and placed in a dark room, was given a knife and was given a man whose only crime was to have paid his rent overdue. From that day on she forever was haunted by bloodcurdling screams echoing inside her head.

It took Anna three tries to pass initiation. The first time was that man who didn't pay his dues on time. The second was a rival gang member. The third, and she had no idea how they had even found him, was her father. She was terrified, and what poor eleven-then-twelve-year-old wouldn't be, when faced with the stomach-churning decision to choose between _torturing_ or _being tortured_ herself? That she even managed to find the willpower to complete the task was astounding and, frankly, disturbing, because clearly the desire she held for a need to _belong_ with people who noticed her and took care of her, even if they were only criminals, was stronger than her morals.

For this. Anna joined the Red Cranes only for this.

So there was another Anna born that day, when the knife in her hand was saturated with crimson and hot blood was seeping out onto the stained stone tiles of the room. It was a bastard child that Anna definitely didn't want, one birthed into existence from a single perverse, illicit _thrill_ that winked into existence for but a moment before she, horrified, quickly stamped it down again. But the fact remained that it was there, and it lurked, and it grew, and it grew, and it grew.

They happened infrequently, at first. Times where she thought she had long blackouts. She'd be sitting in the common room after a morning of running numbers, prone form lying sprawled and useless over several couches. The clock hands would be pointing at two o'clock in the afternoon, and then she'd take another look at the clock after what she thought was five minutes, and it'd be ten in the night. Sometimes, she'd look down and see dried blood caked underneath her fingernails, dirt scrapes on her arms and knees, but she can't remember being untidy two seconds before. The behavior scared her, and she kept it quiet. But by the time she hit her teenage years, that was when she began to have more and more frequent episodes.

She wouldn't be in the dark either, all the time anymore. Sometimes she remembered murky memories of things she could not speak of, because she simply could not believe she'd do it.

She walked into a bookstore one day, and idly riffed through a pile of paperbacks lying on a table for sale, before one title caught her eye. It churned something uneasy within her, causing her to pick it up with slightly shaking hands. Her eyes flitted over the title before she flipped it over, eyes skidding across the summary, then slowly turned it over again. An ink drawing of a man in a top hat who sat hunched over on a bench graced the front cover.

Anna, for reasons unknown even to herself, immediately purchased the book and breezed out of the shop shortly afterward.

:.

_[some time, in the immediate present]_

Anna is still inseparable with the paperback novel she bought in the bookstore when she had been fourteen. She carries it around with her wherever she goes, strangely drawn to it and _attached_ to it that by the end of the first month it had been in her possession, she'd read it six times over.

So she is still carrying the paperback with her tonight, wandering around the streets. She'd had no duties that day, for which she was eternally grateful for, and instead spent the time skirting around the backwaters of Arendelle, exploring the city like she used to do, when she was still young. No one dares to bother her, even at this ungodly hour of the night. The leather cord hanging around her neck, sporting a circular piece of metal that has been engraved with elegant lines, intricate loops and swirls that formed the head of a crane bird, ingrained with rusty red and copper: it drives any men or women who may have been getting ideas away. The small tattoo — or metaphorical chains, as Anna has grown to call it — nestling underneath the curve of her collarbone, with the same crane and a Roman numeral _II_ inked over the red crest, denoted her as the second-ranking member in the Red Cranes. Anyone who attacked Anna would be a being with a death wish.

One did not mess with the Red Cranes and expect no retribution during the following twenty-four hours.

The moon is high in the sky, peeking shyly past the few dark clouds that wisp across the night sky, allowing the faint glimmer of stars — for once — to shine down on Arendelle. Anna glances upward, surveying the night sky and tracing over a few constellations in her mind — there was Orion, above it Taurus — before dropping her gaze back down to earth, squinting against the sharp glow from a street lamp she had just been passing.

But a street lamp's glow only reaches so far, and Arendelle is notorious for neglecting maintenance of the street sides; thus there is a consecutive string of broken streetlights, standing tall and grim and silent. And Anna has just passed the last working light on the block, and in her defense she had still been waiting for her eyes to adjust to the sudden darkness, when she blindly walks into a warm body and lets out a muffled shriek.

Her hand flies instinctively to the handgun at her side, fingers closing tightly around its holster as she stumbles backward, back into the working street lamp, feverishly attempting to gain a decent idea of her bearings. Anna squints into the thick shroud of night, vaguely making out a shadowy form also stumbling backward a few steps.

"Sorry," Anna begins to call out into the night, when the figure appears to recover and step forward into the golden glow of the streetlight, following Anna's example.

Anna can't quite comprehend who she is seeing when she first lays eyes upon the trim woman standing five feet away, a hand pressed lightly against her forehead. She has blue eyes, is the first thing Anna notices. Startling, icy blue eyes, darkened by and shot through with healthy doses of rage and annoyance. Purple eye shadow, applied with a light hand, glimmers on the woman's eyelids. She has a shade of blonde for hair that's so white that if Anna hadn't seen the woman's cobalt irises, she would have thought she had a case of albinism. A form-fitting white shirt hugs her chest and waist, a loose, well-worn black leather jacket drapes over her thin shoulders, and she's wearing a set of simple blue jeans.

Then Anna sees the canvas bag slung over her shoulder, the color stains on the woman's long, pale fingers, and it suddenly _clicks._

Platinum blonde hair? _Check._

Blue eyes? _Check._

Body and long legs fit enough to be a supermodel? _Double fucking check._

And her hands are stained with paint. Objects clatter within the bag, maybe brushes and other art supplies, the woman is holding as she shifts impatiently from foot to foot, scrutinizing Anna with a sharp glare not unlike that of a hawk's, and Anna takes a step forward, still staring at her uncertainly.

"You're that painter woman," is the first thing that comes out of her mouth.

"There are many 'painter women' out there, as you so crudely put it," the painter says bluntly, tearing her eyes away and suddenly looking very disinterested.

"You're Elsa Vetr, aren't you?" Anna immediately asks.

Elsa Vetr's eyes have turned downright frigid. "Are you another fan?"

"Uh..." Anna scratches the nape of her neck, uncertain. "No. Not a fan, really. I don't really think much about your paintings."

"Hmm." Elsa Vetr narrows her eyes, a piercing, icy blue stare that rips straight past the material flesh and bone that makes up Anna's body and twists right into her heart.

"What is it that you are reading?" she asks suddenly, and Anna notices how uncomfortably close the world-renowned painter is to her now. She licks her lips, which have suddenly turned dry, and shows the dog-eared, well-worn cover to the woman.

A smile immediately twists itself across the platinum blonde's face, and Anna can't help but feel a shiver run down her spine. Because there's something so deeply _sinister_ about the smile that Anna Bergström, lieutenant of the most widespread and dangerous and well-known gang in the entire city (if not country), Anna who knows twenty-one ways to kill a man using nothing but the items on her dresser back at the headquarters — Anna takes the tiniest of steps backward as if to form a paper-thin, invisible barrier between herself and the painter, who is still scrutinizing the book Anna is now holding in front of her as if it's a shield.

"You," says Elsa Vetr, and she takes a step toward Anna to make up for lost space, a strange and fevered gleam in her eye, "are perfect."

Anna almost drops the book onto the ground.

"Excuse me?" she asks.

Elsa doesn't say anything for a few moments, only arches an eyebrow and crooks a finger.

Anna wavers, unsure of what is going on but is definitely sure she really would not _like_ to know.

"Come with me," snaps Elsa, and she takes another step toward Anna, _"you"_ — jabbing a finger into the perplexed redhead's chest — "are going to be my new muse."

Anna can't quite help it, the words simply come spilling out of her mouth, and no matter how dangerous she herself might be, Elsa Vetr is known to be absolutely notorious when it comes to getting things she wants. But Anna bristles anyway when the blonde abruptly demands this of her, and sharply asks, "D'you even know who I am?"

Elsa freezes in place, her nostrils flaring and eyes narrowing dangerously. Underneath the ambient glow of the streetlights lining the cracked city road beyond, throwing half of her face into a blurry light while the other half is encroached by dark shadows, she looks downright malevolent.

"I am well aware," says Elsa slowly, her voice so perfectly blank and monotonic that Anna knows that underneath, she's hiding boiling rage. Her eyes flicker meaningfully to Anna's dark crimson crane pendant.

The redhead fumbles slightly at this, a hand darting up to clutch the pendant in her shaking fingers. She quickly tucks it underneath her shirt, a red glow starting to spread across her cheeks, when Elsa speaks again, "I think that a better question to ask would be, do you know who _I_ am?"

And it's as much of a redundant inquiry as Anna's had been.

Because who doesn't know who she is?

Who hasn't seen the paintings done by Elsa Vetr? Even Anna has seen some of her pictures before. Strange things, they are. She remembers thinking that she definitely would not be a fan. She remembers wondered what could have caused Elsa Vetr to paint one particular painting, that of a dozing man. A classic figure, and Anna could see from it why Elsa is considered a master at her profession: cobalt fading into matte black, smoky gray into powdered-eggshell blue, blended so well that sometimes she couldn't tell where one color began and the other ended.

But Anna had thought the palette was ugly. Elsa Vetr had bruised this particular canvas black and blue, painted in sweltering crashes of shattering stone gray and midnight blue. It was quite chaotic, all the tones, and Anna wondered how the platinum blonde could have ever possibly thought that painting to be pleasing to the eye by any stretch of the phrase.

But she doesn't tell Elsa this now, though. Elsa, whose lips are stretched into the beginnings of a snarl, hands fisted by her side until her knuckles popped. Anna probably could have put a bullet through her head and she'd still be glaring at her with such fury and insistence that Anna would have disintegrated into mere atomic particles.

So Anna says, a mite apprehensively, "Well, yeah, I know who you are. Everyone does."

"Then _come_ with me," Elsa bites, ignoring Anna's last comment completely, and then she drags the unfortunate strawberry blonde by the arm, away into the dead of the night.

_...Oooh,_ and Anna realizes too late, when Elsa has stopped already in front of an enormous suite hunkered down in one of the well-to-do sections of the city, _I was supposed to meet Hans at the diner for the meeting with...fuck, what's his name? That fat Russian man from the Guardians?_

"Get in," Elsa lowly intones, and then pushes Anna into the foyer without waiting for the redhead's response.

"I — I have to be somewhere," says Anna, and she backs toward the door, her hand once more unconsciously drifting to the handgun still concealed at her hip. "Uh, sorry, but it's kind of important — _holy shit, put that thing down!"_

Anna really does draw out her firearm this time, but Elsa's already beaten her to it.

"You are my muse," says the blonde blandly, and she turns Anna slowly, the muzzle of something cold and metallic pressing against the redhead's stiff back. "You are staying with me, for now. And you are not leaving until I say you can."

Anna shutters in a breath, her hand still halfway to the gun by her side, well aware of the weapon being pressed threateningly against her flesh and skin.

"What do you _want_ from me?" Anna manages to spit out, made frantic and furious by the blonde's nonchalant attitude. "Find yourself another fucking muse, I don't have time for this —"

She hears the safety click.

"I want to create the perfect painting," Elsa says sternly, and it's absolutely _terrifying_ the way she's still remaining calm about the whole situation, as if she isn't threatening Anna's life right now, "and you are going to help me."

"You're pointing a fucking gun at me," Anna squeaks, her voice becoming high-pitched. "And how in the world can I possibly help you?!"

She can't see Elsa, because the blonde is still standing behind her, but she can practically _hear_ her lips twitch up into a smirk when she rebuts, "Is that not what you do on a daily basis, Red Crane?"

"It doesn't mean I have to like it."

Elsa ignores the statement and reverts back to answering Anna's previous question, "Well, you are _honest,"_ she says, and the pressure digging into her backside retreats somewhat. "No one's ever told me they didn't like my paintings before. Not to my face."

"I never said that!" Anna protests, her voice rising higher and higher. "I just said I wasn't a fan!"

"It is the same difference." For some reason, Elsa takes a long time to say this, all the while nudging Anna deeper into the belly of her home. Then a strangely cold breath is ghosting over Anna's ear, fingers lightly playing with the collar of her shirt, and Anna shivers despite herself, goosebumps rising along her arms.

"You..._intrigue_ me," whispers Elsa, and there's definitely a seductive undertone running under her voice now. Her free hand drifts up to stroke the underside of Anna's jaw, and the redhead twitches, tilting her head upward slightly.

"It would be a shame, then," continues Elsa, "if I didn't get...personally acquainted with you."

Her grip on Anna's jawline increases, as does the firearm digging into her back once more. Anna almost moans.

_Oh my god, Anna,_ some part of her hazy mind screeches._ This crazy fucking psychopath of a painter is sticking a gun at your back and trying to seduce you or something, you're being _turned on_ by her? What the hell?_

Anna's so distracted by her own inner thoughts and _holy shit,_ Elsa's _still_ doing that thing with her fingers down Anna's neck, that she almost doesn't recognize the feeling of the gun to her back being withdrawn.

They're at the entrance to the basement now, and Elsa nudges the door open with the edge of her foot. The smell of acrylics and oils waft up strongly from the stairs, dry and musky scents intermingling with each other to create a surprising aroma.

"You are going to be my muse," Elsa insists once more for what feels like the billionth time that night, but Anna finds that she doesn't really care anymore. "So inspire me."

Then she pulls Anna down the stairs and swings the door shut behind her.

-—

**part the second** :: straight lines

_(you just want to paint.)_

_(that's kind of all you live for.)_

:.

Elsa Vetr is cold.

Not simply in the way she acts, but quite literally, _cold._ Elsa's normal body temperature is something like thirty-five degrees Celsius and if she ever stuck a thermometer in her mouth and it came out flashing a thirty-six, thirty-seven degrees, she would likely be confined to bed rest for the rest of the week. She radiates disdain and remains aloof, detached from the world — isolated, because being isolated is what Elsa likes best.

Her painting style, however, is the complete opposite of this _concealing_ idea. It's almost as if the paint and canvas is a tool she uses to get all her emotions out, ones she had kept bottled in for days upon weeks upon months until it demands an outlet.

Elsa, for the most part, paints equal parts manically and aggressively. Broad, sweeping strokes of gold and citrine and gamboge lashes across a background of crimson and scarlet and burnt sienna. Curved lines of aged sunlight shaft into a darkening blood-red sky, and everything is blended together in such a way that upon its completion the painting is both distinct yet blurred, for Elsa hates _straight lines_ more than anything. _Straight lines_ are undesirable, because they are so restricted, and she's been restricted enough in her life without having _straight lines_ to bar her from freedom of expression in painting as well.

But she's getting tired. Tired and frustrated. She's been painting for years upon years on an end, and she still hasn't created _it._ The perfect Painting. It's elusive, slippery, and no matter how hard she tries to catch it, it manages to escape her desperate grasp time and time again.

Half-filled canvases, complete paintings, boards with a few rough pencil sketches on them — they all are lying around Elsa's basement, which she has transformed into a studio of sorts. Paint-splattered jars of tainted, muddy water lie around the tables, crammed together in a row. Paintbrushes strewn all over the place, some even on the floor, and a single easel has been pushed to the back of the studio with a fresh canvas waiting.

So when Elsa brings in the Red Crane to the studio, this is what she sees. She ignores the startled intake of breath behind her and busies herself with setup, sifting through a box full of tubes of acrylics and tossing colors onto the table standing beside the easel, quickly laying down a palette. Then she turns to the Red Crane, narrowing her eyes slightly at the lost-looking redhead.

"Just stay here and talk, okay?"

"O-okay...?" Her reply tapers off uncertainly when Elsa dips her brush into the paint and begins her art.

Strokes of light cerulean and powder blue whisk across the canvas, before they fade into midnight blue and space cadet, and begin to form the outline of _something,_ a man's face.

Anna watches Elsa do this for a while, before she sighs and picks up a stray, square piece of illustration board lying on the table next to her, then a paintbrush, before she begins to fiddle around with it.

She isn't quite painting, only languidly drawing the brush over the board in sweeping, careful strokes. She mindlessly splashes colors on, not really sure what she wants to achieve by doing this other than to dispel perhaps crushing boredom, when Elsa's harsh voice suddenly rings throughout the room.

_"You!"_

Her voice cuts through the air, cold and clear, and Anna jumps so badly in her seat the she totters off the stool, the glistening board clattering onto the floor along with her.

Elsa doesn't seem at all bothered when Anna picks herself up from the gleaming wooden planks, still wincing slightly. She only impatiently waits for the redhead to pick some wood shavings off her side before snapping, "Why aren't you talking?"

"Uh," says Anna meekly, "I wasn't aware that I was supposed to?"

"You're my muse! So talk!" Elsa turns back to her painting, where a half-formed figure has begun to appear. Anna squints in the dim light to try and see what the blonde is painting, but Elsa shoots her a glare and turns to the side. "No looking until I'm done."

"...Okay." Anna shrugs submissively, then flinches when Elsa snaps again.

_"Talk,"_ the blonde hisses.

"I think you're really pretty," Anna blurts out in the second of insanity caused by all the pressure Elsa has placed on her. She immediately snaps her mouth shut, cheeks coloring themselves a shade of bright red. She shuffles her feet around in embarrassment. "And, um...yeah."

Elsa doesn't speak, she only furrows her eyebrows and paints as vigorously as ever, sending bright streamers of an afternoon sky and dark cobalt shooting across the canvas, now half-covered in a shining, monochomatic blue paint.

After a few minutes, Elsa turns and pins Anna down with another one of those scary-ass stares, blue eyes boring to the very center of her soul.

"What's your name?" the blonde asks abruptly, turning on her heel and glare icily at the clearly embarrassed redhead.

"Ah...what?"

There's a long pause, only broken by the quiet beeping of the digital clock that's hanging on the far end of the wall, signalling the time as midnight.

"Oh," says the Red Crane, and she looks visibly flustered now, wringing her hands around each other. The leather cord on her neck shifts, its signature pendant still hidden underneath her neckline.

"My name's Anna," she says, apprehensively. "Anna...Bergström."

Elsa smiles thinly, but she doesn't deign to offer a response.

A few minutes pass in this silent manner. Anna fidgets. Elsa turns back to painting. And then she asks in a frigid tone of voice, "Why did you stop talking?"

Anna splutters out something unintelligible, and then starts chatting about the weather.

:.

_(you take it from her, quietly and _slowly_ —)_

_(a quiet, almost delicate flick, staring into eyes wide with horror —)_

_(fingers clawing feebly onto the ground, blood trickling out, ever so _slowly_ —)_

_(and she makes you smile —)_

* * *

_so i've been playing frozen free fall in short bursts while writing this (come on, it's like five in the morning i stayed up all night to write this) and i think i'm undergoing an existential crisis right now because **i need more lives**._

_i'm thinking two or three more chapters. thanks for reading. remember, there's more to come! please tell me what you think!_


	3. trails

_(uploaded — 8.20.14) _:: _[so i was sick of going over this for the two thousandth time, there's no point in withholding it.__]_ :: _{playlist: _"happy fantasy"; _dj contacreast__.}_

:.

_I don't own _Frozen_. __You can also find this on AO3 and Tumblr._

* * *

**Streetlight Walls**

.

.

_(iii)_

_memories consume, like opening the wound_  
_i'm picking me apart again _  
_you all assume i'm safe here in my room_  
_unless i try to start again_

* * *

**chapter three (or, maybe more of a thing that puts sanities into question)** :: trails

-—

**part the first** :: a yellow-bricked road to el dorado

So a person gets an idea.

That's how all fiascoes begin, right?

:.

"Let me go."

Anna finally grinds her demand out, because it's two in the morning and she's been stuck sleeping on the floor of Elsa Vetr's art studio (not at all, by any stretch of the word, comfortable) for the entire night and for the gods' sake, the blonde had been painting for four hours straight and she hadn't stopped _once_ to get even a drink or to eat. Anna doesn't know what kind of black magic Elsa must have possessed to be able to work like a demon through the middle of the night without any form of sustenance at all, but Anna sure as hell didn't have that magic. She is starving and thirsty and her patience has long since withered away into a dried-up husk of a thing, and oh _fuck_ is she tired.

Elsa places a delicate drop of blue paint onto the monstrous behemoth of a painting sitting in front of her, which has been completely coated with glistening acrylics by this point, and then says calmly, "No."

The redhead splutters for a moment in pure indignation, shoving herself upright onto her elbows even as she trains a burning teal gaze onto the impassive painter, who's still attacking the canvas with her brush.

"You're _done,"_ hisses Anna, attempting in vain to keep the vicious snarl from entering her voice, even though the gods knew that Elsa Vetr needs it. She strides over to the painter without another word and snatches away her paint-stained palette, throwing it away to the side. An obnoxious clatter loudly sounds from somewhere out of Anna's view; she ignores it and snatches fistfuls of Elsa's jacket, hauling the utterly livid blonde to her feet and shaking her.

"You're _done!"_ she repeats, jutting a chin toward the object of dissent, sitting quietly on a splattered, worn easel. "The whole entire thing is covered with paint, Elsa, and it looks fucking wonderful, so _why_ do you insist on continuing to paint the stupid thing?" She's begging now, at a complete loss as for _why, why is she still working on the fucking painting when it's_ clearly_ already at the pinnacle of what it can and ever will be?_ A veritable conglomeration of emotions rattles through her words, frustration and rage and simply _bewilderment_ all tussling with each other. "I don't — there's literally nothing more you can do with it! You want me to talk, you want me to give you my thoughts? Here's my fucking thought: _it's done."_

Elsa's eyebrows furrow together, eyes glinting dangerously. And now Anna lets go, instantaneously, as if she's touched a burning iron, instinctively aware that she's gone a step too far over the metaphysical line. The blonde quickly rises to her full height, looming above Anna like some vengeful goddess come to strike down a nonbeliever, before she shoves the Red Crane away with a surprising burst of strength.

"What would you know?" she snarls, and it's clear now that Elsa has no qualms about snapping at the redhead's throat. "What would you know, girl? How would you know when to judge a painting as complete or not, perfect or imperfect? This" — gesturing wildly toward her (clearly finished) painting — "is neither complete nor perfect. Completion is defined when you have touched up a painting to the best of your ability, and even then the best of your ability is _never_ the best, because you can _always_ improve. And perfection is when the _painting_ has hit the _exact_ point of in-between and on the line, when all the monochrome shades visible are merely another definition for colors, and there is a fourth dimension behind every gradient dissolving from light to dark, dark to light. Completion is _what I strive for_ and perfection is _what I need._ And this — painting — is — neither — complete — nor — _perfect!_ And _you_" — jabbing a stiff finger into Anna's chest — "are _staying_ until I have _completed this blasted painting!"_

She spits out the last phrase as if it is a draft of burning poison in her mouth, her eyes deadlocked with Anna's own.

Anna instinctively shrinks back a little from the sheer force of Elsa's obsessive mania, this rant about perfection. Elsa's eyes are still swelling with an inferno of blue flames, burning with the fury of a thousand suns; clearly, she is still riled over Anna's jabs.

And Elsa _herself_, Elsa is brutally technical in her observations, the redhead notes. Dry and flat, in a way. And Anna wonders just how _mechanical_ Elsa can really be, listening to her prattle on about perfection. A true queen of ice and snow, through and through, all sharp lines and hard edges, cold and unyielding as a blast of icy winter wind. Because Anna _knows_ right at that moment that Elsa will have no problem tearing down any obstacle in her path to her nirvana, to what she believed was her own Eden and heaven and afterlife. All of paradise personified into a single painting, crammed within swathes of monochrome colors and writhing in a chaotic storm of..._something._ Anna can never tell with Elsa's paintings, even before she had met the artist herself, because that's exactly what Elsa's paintings are: both enigmatic and aimless. Whatever ephemeral thing out there that Elsa calls perfection, what she wants to _emulate_ in this "perfect painting" of hers, it's completely beyond the redhead.

Likely completely beyond everyone, save for the painter herself.

And Anna takes a breath, and locks eyes with Elsa once more.

"I'll stay," she agrees.

"I did not give you a choice," says Elsa flatly even as she stoops down quickly to snatch her paintbrush up from the floor, still leaking drops of cloudy blue water.

Anna steels her resolve and takes a step closer, still staring into cool cobalt eyes. "I wasn't finished."

A frozen, dead kind of silence follows her words. Elsa's eyebrow twitches, and the paintbrush in her hand stops moving. Apparently, she's gauging whatever Anna wants to say would set her off again or not.

_"You_ do not hold the power in this arrangement," she finally says, low and emotionless. "What makes you think you have the right to ask me for a _favor?"_

"Ah ah ah. I never said it was a favor," smiles Anna, "although now that you mention it..."

Elsa's jaw twitches.

_What makes you think you have the right to ask me for a _favor?

Because Anna, for all her subservience in her current situation, is a Red Crane. Because Anna is heir apparent in the Arendellian Underground's line of so-called royalty; because Anna, in the end of the day, is _dangerous. _Because however brutal Elsa herself may be in pursuit of perfection, whatever lengths she is willing go and lines she is willing to cross, Anna has _connections_ that for all her wealth and influence Elsa Vetr cannot even hope to access, not by herself at least. Driven as she may be, Elsa stands no chance before the wrath of the entire Red Crane crime syndicate, a mere leaf that would be torn to shreds in a tornado of thunder and lightning. Anna is one small step away from grabbing complete control of the factors controlling this force of nature — and now, through Elsa, she _sees_ a way to take that final step, no strings attached.

All her life, she's had one, ultimate goal in her life: _stay alive._ Stay alive through her father's drunken rages, stay alive on the streets, and now stay alive on the top of the criminal underworld. Melt into flickering shadows; never quite there, yet still watching in the background. She's long figured out that to stay alive, she needs to ally herself with those who have power: real, true, power. Not the artificial and petty kind kings and queens claim to hold, but always to the puppetmasters, the men and women behind the scene. Manipulating invisible strings, agreements and alliances, terms and conditions, a hand pushing this way and that in order to achieve what they want. So light, yet so influential. And what better place to acquire this coveted position, what better place to harness the power she will need to _stay alive_ than at the top of the whole pile of puppetmasters?

But Anna says nothing of this, because _she_ knows that _Elsa_ already knows. Even now, the painter is glaring at her ferociously, as if trying to impose the sheer force of her disapproval and will onto the redhead, so she will be able to scrape by with what she wants, no questions asked. And Anna can't and won't allow that anymore, not until she has set her own terms and conditions.

"I'll stay," she says again — and carefully, carefully, because while Elsa is smart enough to know when she's treading on dangerous ground, she's still volatile as dynamite set near an open flame. "On...oh, two conditions."

Elsa's knuckles whiten when she clutches on the paintbrush in her hands even harder. She looks ready to kill, but behind that put-together illusion, Anna notes with a flash of perverse satisfaction, the barest, barest hint of uncertainty.

_Fear._

And Anna is an expert at extorting when she is given something to grasp at, even if it's a mere hair. She's not the lieutenant of the Red Cranes for nothing; she is the King's right-hand manipulator, the one who fashions the elaborate contracts and deals in the Red Crane's crime ring. The King does the actual talking itself, and his words are truly as smooth as silk and and sweet as honey. But Anna has picked up enough that she knows to make hooded insinuations and double-faced agreements with every word she utters, and she _knows_ how to play on emotions like a violinist on his instrument, because she's learned from the King himself and Hans Westerguard is perhaps the most devious man she has ever had the misfortune to meet. And it is Hans whose demise she has to plot, because Anna needs to stay alive, and Anna needs power to stay alive.

So Anna needs to become Queen.

She smiles at the ramrod-stiff Elsa winningly, a bright grin that doesn't border on the side of cheshire one bit.

"One, I get to come and leave whenever I want," Anna dictates, keeping her eyes trained onto Elsa's hooded ones. She keeps her voice light, playful, engaging.

Elsa doesn't buy it and intensifies her glare.

"Oh, come on, don't look at me like that! I won't be unreasonable."

_Like _you_ are being right now, Vetr._

"And two, I ask for a _favor."_

The blonde's blue eyes gleam dangerously for the barest moment before she sets her paintbrush down with a trembling hand and crosses her arms.

"...What do you want?" Her tone is defensive, grudging. "Money?"

Once upon a time, Anna would have jumped onto the offer like a starving wolf on a caribou calf, but not now. She doesn't quite want money anymore, her needs have warped and changed.

"Well, I have no need for money," and Anna voices her thoughts, and a slow smile splits her face and she beckons Elsa over before beginning to whisper.

:.

_(perfection is obtainable, and it's been inside anna, all along.)_

_(you need —)_

:.

The Red Crane leaves immediately after she has dictated her conditions to Elsa, who staggers a few steps backward from the _absurdity_ of it all before sinking heavily into a chair. She pushes her fingers into her temples and attempts, futilely, to calm her inner turmoil.

_She wants me to help her...what?! _

Anna _fucking_ Bergström is a wild card, sullen and quite argumentative in one moment and sweet and silkily manipulative the next. Elsa suspects perhaps a hidden case of bipolar disorder and she can't help but snort at the irony of it all. Anna has remembered to swipe her ratty paperback book where it had been lying facedown (and presumably forgotten) on one of Elsa's paint tables at the last second, something that Elsa is sure is very dear to her — and something that describes her all too well.

But what really niggles at Elsa is that the woman is blatantly throwing her influence around, and that is _not_ acceptable. Elsa fears relinquishing control and power in _anything,_ really, and if there's only a few things she's ever taken to heart, it's that she _always_ has to remain in control of a situation. Not remaining in control, it's nothing more than an irritating yet impenetrable roadblock in her path to perfection, the land of Oz, a road to El Dorado. _Her_ own city of gold, _her_ own paradise, and Elsa will not let anything stand in her way to that. She has given up too much over the past years, ever since her sweet mother had died and her father had cut off practically all ties with her, to let the one woman, the one _being_ she knows is the key to infinity, so ironically be the one who will destroy all chances she has of snatching what she wants.

Elsa frowns darkly at the floor before pushing herself up, beginning to pace in circles all around the studio. One round, two rounds, three rounds — before she slows to a stop in front of the picture that had been the cause of so much tension between her and the Red Crane.

And the Red Crane is right and wrong; it_ is_ finished, but it is not. It looks nothing more than ugly to Elsa's critical eye now, blues too dark on the shadows creeping across the left side of the man's figure and expression too artificial. With a disgruntled snarl, she tears the canvas down and throws it to the ground, kicking it away with a well-aimed blow and letting the still-wet paint bleed smears of true blue all over her already paint-stained floor.

Elsa watches the painting skid away from her with a cold glare, eying the streaks of paint it leaves behind.

_Streaks of paint._

_Monochrome._

_No...polychrome._

_Warm, warm smiles..._

A pale hand that has rarely ever seen the light of the sun suddenly grips the side of a grimy table, its owner's blue eyes widening imperceptibly.

_"Don't be afraid to try new things, Elsa," Idun tells her daughter, beaming with love and adoration as she gazes down onto her wide-eyed little daughter, bouncing on her lap and gripping a paintbrush in chubby fingers. "Do not _ever_ let fear or insecurity stop you, my love. If you want something that you have never had, then you must do something that you have never done. Your desire to change has to be greater than your desire to stay the same, and then — then, you will be able to do things you have never been able to achieve before. You can do _anything_ you want, become anyone you desire to be._

_"All it takes is a little thinking outside of the box — and that is what you're best at, is it not?"_

_And then Idun gently pries the paintbrush from Elsa's groping hands and dips it into paint the color of an autumn sunrise. Reds and oranges and yellow, all colors bursting with life and warmth..._

_...warm, warm paint..._

_Warm paint._

_Paint that is alive._

Elsa inhales sharply, her eyes narrowing to flinty points.

And then she sweeps out of the art studio with every intention of placing a very important call.

-—

**part the second** :: the strange case of dr. jekyll and mr. hyde

"So where the _fuck_ have you been?"

Anna rubs her eyes and lets out an enormous yawn, ever the dissenter even in front of the King's raging fury.

"Places," she vaguely says.

_"Out with it,_ Bergström." Hans collapses onto the padded chair next to hers, his forehead wrinkled with stress and irritation. "I had to postpone the deal with North from the Guardians, all because you decided to skip out of this meeting and drag your sorry ass to somewhere else that was quite obviously more important than securing an alliance with one of our strongest potential associates. _Where were you?"__  
_

The redhead cracks open an eye to give the fuming King an impassive stare before she throws an arm over her eyes, sinking further into the comfort of her well-worn armchair.

Hans cuts an imposing figure, with all the pristine, well-tailored white suits he always insists on wearing, sporting a matching pair of snowy gloves with golden-threaded cuffs and black boots shined to an impeccable gleam to round off his diplomatic appearance. Anna always scoffs at his blatant display of extravagance, but Hans wears his outfits with pride and arrogance anyway. The auburn-haired man is nothing more than a snake, though, wrapped up in his many skins of princely clothing and charming smiles and warm green eyes that hide nothing but contempt and hatred for those below him.

The first time Anna had seen him, she had been drawn in, utterly captivated by his friendly attitude and just the sincere _presence_ that seemed to ooze out of his every pore. Hans had been the only person she thought truly cared for her well-being — and indeed he did, but that was only because he drew personal gain from her being there. Anna had ferried little trinkets and supplies Hans had requested the first couple of years she had been in the Red Cranes, working in the merchandising department. Sometimes he would come down to the warehouses — just for Anna, he said — and take her out to places she'd never had the chance to appreciate before; maybe the park, or a nice restaurant in central Arendelle, or maybe to a small area where they could be alone and they'd just...talk.

Anna had poured her twelve-year-old heart out to Hans, who was but fourteen at the time, son of an infamous aristocrat in the city who was known equally for his shark-like politicking and the number of children he had, thirteen in all (and reportedly not born from all the same mother). Hans just happened to be the youngest, the thirteenth son, and he spoke to Anna about how bitter he was back in his home; how he was always regarded as good-for-nothing, the spare; how two of his older brothers pretended he didn't even _exist_ for three years. And Anna sympathized with him, completely captivated and drawn in by his spell, because she felt as thought she could relate to him. And he was just so sweet and kind to her, always knowing how to cheer her up after a particularly taxing day, indulging her every petty whim and request even as she indulged his.

_A box of this, six vials of that. Oh, and could you place a covert order for that sample of sulfur, too?_

Yes, they were the best of friends for the longest while, and even now, after he had revealed her true colors to her as an ambitious megalomaniac, Anna still marveled at his acting skills. Like it or not, Hans was truly one of a kind, someone who almost held the fate of the entire city in his hands and thus every single person living inside it, save for perhaps one or two individuals.

One of the few being probably Elsa Vetr, and all the others under his sphere of influence — including Anna herself — are the reason why the bastard has to go.

Anna rubs her fingertips together, still slightly numb from the cold outside and inside Elsa's studio. She hadn't noticed it before, but the paint studio had been ridiculously cold — Anna wonders how the paint doesn't freeze in the temperature. Grumbling, she remains under Hans's baleful glare while trying to restore some feeling into her hands before Hans demands with finality in his tone, _"Where. Were. You?"_

"Elsa found me wandering the streets, and mind you this was thirty minutes _before_ your precious meeting with North was supposed to commence, decided she wanted me as her 'muse,' and then held me at gunpoint all the way back to her studio, and didn't let me leave until fifteen minutes ago."

"Elsa _Vetr?" _Hans sounds supremely unconvinced. "The painter?"

"Yes, the painter," Anna wearily agrees. "Oh, and she _may _just be slightly psychotic. Or really psychotic. Hans, she's _crazy."_

_And pretty,_ a part of her mind rebels, and Anna feels a hot flush creeping up her neck at an alarming rate when she remembers her slip of tongue back at the painter's studio.

"No crazier than you, I would hope," Hans murmurs.

"She held me at the gunpoint because I didn't want to be her muse!" protests Anna, flinging her hands up in exasperation. "What sane person does that?!"

"It doesn't matter," Hans says decisively, abruptly rising to his feet and brushing off invisible specks of dest from his lapels. "You're going to deal with this little problem you have with Elsa Vetr, whomever. The meeting with North has been rescheduled a week from now, at the Snuggly Duckling. Don't go...AWOL again on me."

Anna watches him leave.

:.

"So, what is this _thing_ you have with that redhead? Anne, or something?" Rapunzel asks one night over a dinner at some fancy restaurant Elsa doesn't care enough to find out its name. Her cousin, a fellow painter (if not quite as well-known as Elsa) hailing from the nearby city of Corona, had stomped into Elsa's studio, declared she was going to finally pull the stick that had been shoved up the platinum blonde's ass out, and all but dragged Elsa out to eat. Elsa had obliged if only for the reason that her cheerful cousin is one of the people she genuinely likes — not that she'll ever admit it — enough to not snap, but now Rapunzel is right plummeting her with questions about Anna that Elsa is not the least bit ready to answer.

_Anna,_ Elsa darkly muses before cutting slowly into the rare steak in front of her, watching oily red currents drip out underneath the force of her knife. She is not the least bit hungry, instead sawing her food into increasingly small pieces, until half the beef is swimming around in a pool of translucent, dark pink liquid.

Rapunzel eyes her brooding cousin for a moment, then leans forward, a slow smile breaking across her lips. "You _do_ have something going on with her, don't you?" she teases lightly, her green eyes lighting up with mischief.

Elsa spears a cube of meat as delicately as she could before taking a tiny bite. "Not everything has to be romanticized, Rapunzel," she criticizes sharply, turning shreds of beef around on her plate with her fork.

"Oh, come _on,_ Elsa. That's not the point!" Rapunzel brandishes her knife wildly while saying this. Elsa idly pities the passerby who would have the misfortune to become prematurely blinded by the point of a steak knife being accidentally thrust into their face. "You can't paint without this girl, and from what I hear she's almost _always_ around...it's kind of obvious!"

Elsa makes a sullen noise of disagreement. "Anna," she says with as much dignity as she could muster while lowering her voice, "is a _criminal._ What makes you think I would ever try and enter into a relationship with her? An _intimate_ relationship?!"

To Elsa's everlasting befuddlement, Rapunzel doesn't even deign to blink an eye at the mention of "criminal," rather opting to roll her eyes. "'Intimate relationship,' really? Elsa, how much of a textbook can you be?" She sits up straight, leaning forward conspiratorially on her elbows. "You know what you need, to really get that stick out of your ass? You need a _date."_

"...I do not _date,"_ says Elsa with all the decorum of a disapproving queen of ice and snow.

"Uh huh. What are you going to do, veto my admonishment? What a tragedy. Well, the gods know that you need your significant other in your life, now of all times, so if your soul mate is in a criminal, then a criminal she will be."

Elsa finally does flush this time, dropping her fork onto her plate with a clatter. "Anna is _not_ my 'soul mate'!"

"Uh huh." Rapunzel grins at her cheekily over her food.

The platinum blonde throws her cousin a dark look before pushing her plate away, irately signalling a waiter nearby to pick it up for disposal.

"Anna is simply my muse," she says blandly, and Rapunzel's smile finally fades off her face when she realizes, once again, just how _indifferent_ Elsa could be toward "feelings" and "emotions" sometimes.

"I want to paint," Elsa recites monotonously after her food has been whisked away, and something dark flashes over her eyes, a grimace creeping across her lips. And despite the warm, ambient atmosphere of the restaurant, Rapunzel feels a chill run up her spin. Goosebumps rise up over her arms when Elsa leans forward, hands braced on the table, locking a pair of emotionless blue eyes onto expressive green.

_"I want to paint, and that is all I live for."_

-—

**part the third** :: all you need is love-

_(this is anna's last chance, before you decide to go forth with your plan —)_

_(you need —)_

:.

Elsa is frustrated.

Anna titters airily by one of the walls of the art studio, as if she is attempting to melt into the rough plaster and escape the inevitable explosion that is bound to erupt from the painter in perhaps three more seconds. She can tell, from elsa's mannerisms: strokes of the paintbrush increasing at an alarmingly fast rate, the deep-set scowl scrawled alls cross the blonde's expression. A deal as they may have, Elsa's rages have not diminished in their force nor fury and every time the painter dissolves into her manic crazes, oftentimes snatching a penknife and slashing right into whatever painting had offended her that night, Anna has to resist the urge to run.

She pushes the thought away from her mind as quickly as it has come.

_No. Don't be afraid. _You're_ the one in control here._

_But just like she apparently can't work without you, you can't get what you want without her._

"This is not _working!"_ Elsa finally snaps after another moment, a cannon shot of a sound that tears cleanly through the tension thickly clouding the air. The blonde jams her paintbrush into the jar of water that had been placed besides her, where it wobbles precariously to the precipice of its stool before somehow managing to right itself.

Anna's fingers tap an agitated, staccato beat on the scuffed wooden surface of the table she is leaning on, teal eyes fixed unblinkingly upon the fuming painter, who is standing in front of her latest "flawed" piece of art with rigid shoulders and shaking fists. Elsa whips around with a low snarl, the edge of her shoulder catching the corner of her palette, which in turn falls against the jar of water and sends both objects plummeting down to their early demise with a crash of breaking glass. Shards of glass gleam on the ground, fragments of what used to be whole, swimming languidly in a pool of water the color of a liquefied sunset. Anna's fingers increase in their speed when a late paintbrush idles too close to the edge of its table and falls to the wet ground with a shallow splash and clatter, drawing ever the more attention to the trembling blonde standing in the center of the whole mess.

A few slow seconds trickle by before Anna registers the gross sobbing coming from Elsa. She immediately stiffens, because _really,_ she isn't sure how to deal with this, because Anna's never quite seen Elsa completely break down like she has now, and_ wow, Elsa really _is_ capable of feeling other emotions than slips in rage, _and — and — _and_ —

"...Elsa?" she asks, weakly.

The painter only retreats further into herself. Curls into a ball, locks her arms together, and sucks in desperate breaths — in and out, in and out.

"Can't do this anymore," Elsa mutters, and now Anna really knows that something's wrong because Elsa never cries and she's _never_ used a contraction before. "I can't do it —"

"Elsa —"

She only slams a fist down onto the ground and Anna winces when the strike strays dangerously close to the broken shards of glass. "All my life," she manages to choke out. "My father. He wanted me to be — _perfect._ And I _have_ to be perfect. For him."

Anna bites her lip, and then tentatively brushes past Elsa, looking up at the behemoth of a painting in front of her.

Elsa really is a prodigy at what she does, furious strokes that blend together as effortlessly as anything Anna has ever seen before. It's truly a beautiful rendition of a slice of humanity, but there's still something...

"Love," says Anna, and she touches the canvas with fascination, drawing away fingertips coated with slick, dark orange paint. "That's what you need, Elsa! _Love."__  
_

Elsa's sobs have tapered off into sniffles by this point, and it seems to take a few moments for Anna's voice to register. But when it does, and she pulls her shaking form onto a chair, her red-rimmed gaze is still startling in its broken intensity, fractured bits of _things_ slipping around in those pools of ice blue. Her stare is still as blank and unnerving as ever, and Anna freezes in place, pinned down by the white power behind the look. Waiting with baited breath, Anna stares back.

"...You're right," says Elsa suddenly, and an expression of happiness splits her face — except that it's dark and sharp, causing Anna to blink and pull back a little instinctively. The redhead tentatively watches as Elsa begins pacing, fingers lacing themselves behind her back. A stray blonde bang teeters and falls to hang in front of the painter's shadowed face.

And then her hand — Elsa Vetr's _hand_ — it's cupping Anna's jaw and she has this _seductive_ glint in her eyes, and Anna feels a breath rattle harshly in her chest because where this is going, it's either going to be the best day of her life or the very worst.

"You will help me," Elsa intones. "You _promised_ me."

"So...you will help me paint _love,_ then?"

There's desperation and finality battling it out in her words, and Anna doesn't know why, but she doesn't think she _needs_ to, either.

So she says, "'Course I will." She hesitates, then adds, "We have a deal. If _you_ uphold your end of the bargain, then it follows that I will uphold mine."

Elsa's smile widens.

"...What?" Anna pants, Elsa's lips so close to her own that she can feel puffs of breath from her nose brushing against her skin.

"I believe...that I know how to create my painting."

:.

_(oh, yes, you do.)_

:.

Long after they had untangled sweaty limbs from each other and the boundless cries of ecstasy and pleasure ringing out through Elsa's bedroom faded to soft whimpers and then nothing at all, after Elsa has watched the Red Crane wander off into the dead of the night after hastily slipping on her clothes again, the painter pulls a thin shift over her naked body and drifts back to her studio, taking a loose hold of the paintbrush still trailing liquid color across a paint-covered canvas. Dollops of coral glow in the foreground, gradients of orange fade into black, and the faintest specks of dark vermillion mark the man's pupils.

And then paintbrush then falls, falls from her limp fingers with a clatter onto the ground. The sharp sound of wood hitting stone rings throughout the studio, yet failing to break through the blonde's reverie. Elsa watches it as if she is in a slow-motion movie. She sags onto the floor and stares at the painting in front of her, paint still shining and reflecting the moonlight shafting through the window upstairs, leading into the open door of her studio, spilling down the staircase in a river of silver.

_"Love. That's what it needs, Elsa! Love."_

And yes, Elsa took that very literally, because she _doesn't know how else to take things._ Descending down upon Anna (who had been _more_ than willing, Elsa grumbles to herself), trying to feel _love_ by making love, but she still doesn't know — doesn't know what love _is._

And it didn't _work._

She regards the painting in front of her with a flat stare, judging it with a sharpness and precision not unlike that of a hawk's. Judging it for perfection, for status worthy to call this piece the Painting. Because the perfect Painting has only been achieved when all the colors have been combined into a precise, exact ratio; the Painting has been achieved when citrine dissolves into a liquid sunrise, spring into the stretches of a never-ending forest, and white is just another name for a shade but it's still a _color,_ and black is a shadow is a color is infinity.

And this painting, the one sitting in front of her —

— waiting to be defiled —

_(you have given in, you fool.)_

_(you are _never _supposed to give in.)_

— in this, everything is _perfect_ (but it's just not, _notnotnottheperfectPainting_), and Elsa tears into the canvas with fingernails caked with dried dreams and a strangled scream.

:.

The caller picks up as soon as the first tone buzzes.

_"Speaking."_

Elsa leans forward on her chair, focused entirely on the conversation about to play out on the phone.

"It's Elsa," she says lowly, and a smile plays at the twitch of her lips when she hears a sharp inhale from the other end.

_"Elsa!"_ The speaker's tone is just the right amount surprised, with a little bit of excitement fraying at its edges. _"Oh wow, it's been such a long time. Why haven't you called earlier?"_

_Translation: What could you possibly want this time?_

Elsa, despite herself, rolls her eyes. The person she has dialed is good at this game, very good. But Elsa knows enough about this figure that once she mentions maybe a six-figure deal, he will be jumping into her employment soon enough.

"I want you to do something for me. It is nothing much, I promise you," she assures him easily. "You will not even have to...get your hands dirty."

_"Hmm."_ He sounds unconvinced. _"Then what do you need me for?"_

Elsa turns to look at the fresh canvas on the easel.

"A very, very thorough clean-up."

:.

_(— someone alive.)_

* * *

_i'm 99.99% sure this is the penultimate chapter. all the best._


	4. fragments

_(uploaded — 9.23.14)_ :: _[chapter four, a.k.a. the chapter w/ really shit writing but elsa goes batshit crazy so that's a plus right__] _:: _{playlist:_ "luma"; _the m machine}_

:.

_I do not own _Frozen_. You can also find this on Tumblr and AO3._

* * *

**Streetlight Walls**

.

.

_(iv)_

_it takes you to another place_  
_imagine everything you can_  
_all the colors start to blend_  
_your system overloads again_

* * *

**chapter four (the end, because we have arrived where we began)** :: fragments

-—

**part the first** :: quoth the raven _nevermore  
_

_(your story, you see, fits in a logical order.)_

:.

Two women meet in the dead of the night, one harboring an unsavory ideal, secreted to her own mind. There is a knife and there is soft flesh, and the touch and the slash are all that are needed for a rapidly fraying bond to be broken.

You've just met both of them. A painter who has gone to the ends of the earth to create infinity, to create perfection. A lieutenant who had plotted to turn the underworld upside down on its head, yet fell herself because she flew too close to the heat of a blazing sun.

And for one, nothing had gone from their arrangement.

_(for you. right?)_

For the other, her life paid the forfeit.

:.

_(fucking wrong.)_

:.

One last time, the doorbell rings, and it's Anna.

Elsa lets her in.

:.

She has always performed each and every task ever assigned to her (personally or not) with alacrity and an intense, unwavering focus that some would probably label as bordering upon maniacal.

But she uses this determination to her advantage. This dogged, single-minded fire that churns within her. She charges with the flames and refuses to relent in the slightest.

So she is so good at what she does. She leaves no cranny unchecked, no corner unturned.

Anna dies quietly and without a struggle, with a small, almost delicate slit to the neck.

And when she's looking back on it, maybe ten and twenty years from now, maybe she'll find it funny that Anna's last words, gargled with blood and fear and _what, was that sadness_, are directed at her.

Anna rasps, _"You're — a monster —"_

Elsa only watches on quietly, the lone attendee in a movie theater, whose screen flickers and flashes, again and again and again, with the picture of a silent, clean murder. The maelstorm of betrayal and horror howling in expressive teal eyes will soon turn black with death and blood, and she doesn't let even a flicker of emotion cross her face until Anna stops twitching.

And this is when Elsa takes everything from her, quietly. She cracks open the girl's bones, slices gently into flesh rapidly turning pale with death before peeling it away and letting the blood run freely. Fingers becoming stained with a gaudy crimson red, she takes from Anna what she needs. And the resulting picture — the Painting, _the Painting _— that she creates with this new paint, _warm paint,_ is so beautifully perfect that Elsa can't help but smile. Smile a twisted, perverse kind of smile that has her white teeth (white and clean and pure) glinting in what little light there is, causes shadows to stretch across the better half of her face, causes her to look like a _monster._

_("you're — a monster —")_

But Elsa doesn't think about that. She breathes in the scent of oils and acrylics and blood, and the grin plastered to her face hovers around for a few more moments — an illusion, a ghost in the machine.

When it finally fades, she is left with nothing but an eerily blank mind and the Painting.

The Painting that she's worked hard to achieve for nigh upon a decade, _the perfect painting,_ the one she's dreamed about ever since her mother died.

And now, after her single and only burst of euphoria, she feels...

...

...

..._nothing._  


:.

_(fucking wrong. fucking wrong, elsa.)_

_("you're a monster, you're a monster, you're a monster —")_

:.

When Kristoff arrives at Elsa Vetr's estate, everything is eerily calm and quiet.

He is directed by the stoic, expressionless platinum blonde (not that this is anything new) down to her studio, and he shoots her a quizzical look because she _never_ lets anyone down there.

_"What am I paying you for, Bjorgman?"_ she snaps, crooking a stiff finger at the open door. "Get to it."

She strides away without another word, and he hears the sound of the pantry door slamming open and the clink of glasses.

Shrugging with a roll of his shoulders, he ventures downward into the painter's lair, eyes widening and nostrils flaring as soon as he comes upon the spectacle waiting for him at the foot of the stairs.

His brain doesn't quite make the connection at first: a misshapen lump of crumpled, strangely stiff cloth on the floor, and the smell of blood hanging thick and putrid in the air.

Then — there is a very bloody and very _dead_ body on the floor, and when Kristoff nudges the cadaver over with his foot he is greeted with a young face, a slack jaw, and two dull eyes staring into a void, pinpricks of infinite darkness that seem to swallow all the light in Elsa's already dim studio.

And when he looks up, hands shaking slightly from shock, he sees a canvas, wet paint still gleaming brightly. It's so horribly beautiful and _perfect _and so masterfully done that he immediately takes a step toward it, drawn by the inexplicable aura it exudes, almost as if he is an iron filling drawn to a powerful magnet.

The painting is of a girl, one teetering at the edge of adulthood, with the _strangest_ smile on her face, because he can't pin down the emotion within it: happy or sad or something entirely, entirely new. She has hair the strange color of red and burnt sienna and all the colors in between, then fading slowly into solid brown wisps and then broad, bold strokes of grays and greys and blacks. Her cheeks are dotted with freckles, smattering the bridge of her nose, the space beneath her eyes.

And her eyes are what draw him in.

They are a new shade of something Elsa has mixed with a green color and then a blue, a shade that has no name — verdigris, teal, aquamarine; all tussled and forced into one neat package — and they are flecked with so many different tones of this novel shade, it's so fake that it seems real, almost as if there are stars are swimming within stars within stars. The very edges of the irises are rimmed with something red, the same kind of red that gives the girl's hair its same distinctive color.

And with a start, he realizes that it's the color of blood — _the color of blood _— and, oh _gods,_ he finally understands what Elsa has done, and what she meant about that strange request for a _very, very __thorough clean-up._

"It is beautiful, is it not?"

Her quiet voice, blank and expressionless as a clean slab of slate, comes drifting down the stairs a moment before she does, platinum blonde hair shining fiercely in the moonlight like white fire.

"Elsa..."

She brushes by him, ignoring the dead body on the floor — the painting's unfortunate subject — and stops in front of the painting of the girl, the redheaded girl who's currently lying dead at Kristoff's feet, who can just about speak and move as much as he can at this moment. Because he's just so _shocked,_ mind not comprehending what has happened, _why_ it has happened —

_"Shit,_ Elsa."

"Her name was Anna," says Elsa, fingers barely touching the very edges of the slab of canvas. "Anna Bergström."

Kristoff shakes his head rapidly. _"Why?"_

Elsa turns, and her eyes are hooded as the shadows hanging like a funeral shroud in the corners of her art studio.

"Because I finally, _finally,_ knew how to create the perfect Painting."

Her voice is as bland as ever, and Kristoff feels the spark of a perverse chill running down his spine even as he stares into blue eyes made entirely of glass and steel.

"Elsa," he quietly says, taking a step toward her. "Elsa...you're _not..._supposed to be...supposed to do...such a monstrous thing as this..."

Her white lips twisted themselves in a gruesome approximation of a smile, Death's leer.

"The last thing she ever told me was that I was a monster," she says, and there's something strange in her voice; fragile and trembling, the millisecond before something glass hits the ground and splinters into a million fractured bits and fragments.

Kristoff watches her ascend the stairs and disappear.

-—

**part the second** :: and the walls kept tumbling down

A man with red sideburns barges into her home two days after Elsa has finished her Painting and demands to see Anna.

"She is not here," says Elsa, and the man looks ready to burst, eyes darting frantically around the entrance hall as if he expects the redhead to pop up from behind a panel in the wall.

_"You have her!"_ he roars, getting right into her face and flecking her cheeks with spittle. Elsa drags her shirtsleeve across the spots and narrows her eyes at the man.

_"You have her! I know you do! What the fuck did you do with her, you bitch?!"_

"Hmm..."

Elsa stares at him, unblinking. He wilts slightly underneath her withering glare.

"What I am about to do with you."

The man blinks momentarily and freezes before he even realizes what her statement truly means.

Elsa's hand darts out and plucks the shotgun straight from his grip, the point when it comes straight in front of her chest, before turning the dark end upon him, flicking the hammer up and pulling the trigger.

She looks at the smoking end of the gun with way too much interest than what it warrants, and thinks that it's too bad Anna's not here to see Elsa fulfill her end of the deal.

:.

_("you're a monster, you're a monster, you're a monster —")_

:.

And then the night terrors begin and Elsa can't quite distinguish between reality and her own dreamscape any longer.

:.

She names the painting _Morality,_ and it is by far the most popular exhibition she has ever showcased. Thousands flock from all across Arendelle to gawp at her art, fawn over her skillfulness and _gush_ at the physical representation of perfection in front of them.

Elsa stands by the side of _Morality_ with a practiced and dutiful tilt of her lips plastered onto her face, not a single hair nor twitch out of place. She accepts the compliments with a demure smile.

"It's amazing, this new style you have employed," one of the world's leading art critics tells her when he drops by on the second day of her exhibition.

Elsa smiles something synthetic. "Thank you."

"It's certainly close to perfection," he murmurs, observing the painting from all angles. "If I may be so forward as to ask, who is the young lady in this painting?"

There is a pause that borders upon too long for it to be entirely natural, but the critic doesn't appear to take notice, still enraptured by the painting in front of him.

"...A friend," says Elsa, tight-lipped.

"It's beautiful," he beams. "Well, Ms. Vetr, I would _kill_ to be able to paint like you have, here."

Elsa chuckles a little at this, the faint shadows underneath her eyes becoming ever the more haggard.

_"Well,"_ she smiles. "Wouldn't we all?"

:.

One night during a "girl's night out" (which basically just consisted of two people), Rapunzel had insisted on dragging her cousin into, Elsa wakes up screaming at three in the morning and promptly causes Rapunzel's pet chameleon, Pascal, to fall off from the edge of where he had been sleeping on his owner's pillow before toppling onto the ground and letting out an enormous squeak.

She's mumbling something barely comprehensible, her brunette cousin flailing in her sheets in shock as she's rudely jolted awake from her sleep, almost tumbling down onto the floor and onto Pascal even as she squints at Elsa through bleary eyes.

"...Oh my gods, Elsa?"

And Elsa — Elsa the ice queen, Elsa the painter, Elsa who's absolutely _famous_ for never letting go of her emotions, letting them run wild — Elsa clutches blindly at Rapunzel's arms, red-faced and shirt sticking to her chest with sweat, and then buries her face into her cousin's arms, huge sobs wracking her body with spasms.

Rapunzel can only stupidly freeze for maybe five seconds while her cousin sobs her heart out in the circle of her arms, before she draws Elsa in close and gives her a hug.

She doesn't know what's bothering the painter, exactly — Elsa's been even more jumpier than usual the past couple of weeks, ever since _Morality_ went public — but clearly, it was something terrifying or traumatizing enough to cause the ice queen to collapse into Rapunzel's arms without even so much of a warning, salty tears staining her cheeks and amorphous, wretched cries tumbling out past her lips.

"What's wrong?" Rapunzel keeps asking in five-minute intervals, rubbing soothing circles across her cousin's back and failing spectacularly to even try and get Elsa to calm down, just a little. "What's wrong, Elsa?"

But Elsa doesn't give any response other than to sob harder, and Rapunzel simply gives up after what must have been the sixtieth time she asked, resigning herself to let Elsa cry into her chest.

Elsa doesn't really remember what goes on in the next half hour or so. Just that she's crying and she hasn't cried since she was twelve, going on thirteen, and _gods_ does she hate crying. But she soaks Rapunzel's sleeping T-shirt anyway and lets her cousin's senseless mumbles filter into her mind like a monotonous mantra, _"you'll be okay, you'll be okay, you'll be okay."_

And in a way, Elsa is just as dead as Anna is now, shot right in the chest and leaking something dark red and crimson through the round hole, the last vestiges of her childhood innocence draining into the ground and vanishing before her very eyes. Her heart is thumping wildly in a death waltz, underneath slender bars of her ribcage and smooth muscles made of clay and blood vessels that run ragged with acid and _terror._

___("you're a monster —")_

___("you're a monster —")_

___("you're a monster —")_

(And by this point, she wouldn't mind being dead, if it took the pain out of living.)

-—

**part the third** :: tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

Two months later, she has changed. For the better or for the worse, she can't even tell anymore.

She has death in her face now, kisses of ivory taking residence in her cheeks and dark blood on her lips. Elsa stands wrapped in thick iron chains meant for prisoners and thing wrists jailed in cuffs. She smiles, and it is nothing more than teeth now.

(And now, tear a piece of your soul away and let Death invade every crack you've never bothered to patch close.)

:.

"You shouldn't drink so much," mutters Rapunzel, nudging the bottle of absinthe in Elsa's slack grip.

Elsa's eyes roll over to the right, pinning down her cousin with an unfocused blue glare. This new habit of drinking, it is the least of her vices. Because what she's done, there needs to be some sort of medium for her to cope. For her, it's the drink.

She wants to laugh at Rapunzel for telling her not to drink. But she doesn't, and really, it's too bad that she's forgotten how to laugh in the first place.

:.

_("you're a monster, you're a monster, you're a monster —")_

:.

But it will be okay, she tells herself, even as she pushes the curved mouth of the bottle against her trembling lips. It will be okay, because...time heals all wounds.

(Right?)

...

...

...

That's what it should do.

:.

_(cruelty isn't a trait, elsa-)_

:.

She buries her head in her hands, fingers slipping through lank platinum blonde locks. The bottle falls from her slackened grip and shatters on the ground, broken glass shards gleaming on the ground in a small puddle of alcohol.

_The glass. Just like you,_ she thinks through a haze. _Just. Like. You. __Subjected to eternal damnation._

:.

_(cruelty is a habit.)_

:.

_...So you were right, Anna._

_I really am a monster._

_And monsters can't ever, ever, love._

And now, it's a fucked up life she's leading.

Because there is no glory in perfection when it is bought with blood.

* * *

**the end**

* * *

_moral of the story: don't kill people. invisible air cookies to the people who figures out what the hell this story was inspired by (hint: part three's title have something to do with it _:P) _and tbh there's definitely something messed up w/ my head_

_ummm, i'd like to say im writing a short epilogue to this to see what elsa's up to like five years later or something (she's in an insane asylum, there u go) but then im probably gonna be lying and that wouldn't be good. buuut i will say thanks a million for sticking with _streetlight walls_. it means the world to me. _:)

_and hah i know i've been publishing a lot of non-frozen stories _(**slander**) _but trust me ive got lots more elsanna (like, real elsanna, not this dysfunctional shit _:P)_ coming to a story archive near you. if ur interested keep an eye out, or...just follow me hehe *shameless self-promotion*_

_all the best._


End file.
